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PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

Ambrose Bierce

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Ambrose Bierce
Born: 1842
Born: June 24
Aphorist
Journalist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Meigs County
Ohio
Dod Grile
William Herman
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Justice
Without
Made
Piracy
Commerce
Folly

More quotes by Ambrose Bierce

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Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
Ambrose Bierce
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SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness.
Ambrose Bierce
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Twice – Once too often.
Ambrose Bierce
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Habit: A shackle for the free.
Ambrose Bierce
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MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
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AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.
Ambrose Bierce
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Truth - An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.
Ambrose Bierce
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PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.
Ambrose Bierce
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Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
Ambrose Bierce
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The speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.
Ambrose Bierce
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Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
Ambrose Bierce
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RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.
Ambrose Bierce
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Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.
Ambrose Bierce
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Cribbage, n. A substitute for conversation among those to whom nature has denied ideas.
Ambrose Bierce
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An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured on his lips to revive him.
Ambrose Bierce
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TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
Ambrose Bierce
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Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.
Ambrose Bierce
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Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.
Ambrose Bierce
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BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.
Ambrose Bierce
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Indigestion: A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the Western Wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: 'Plenty well, no pray big belly ache, heap God.'
Ambrose Bierce